Chapter One

Chapter One

“Sir—Mephisto?” came a hoarse whisper from the darkened doorway.

The white-caped doctor didn’t turn around, or stop the delicate work currently requiring his full attention. “Is that you, Kikiou?” he said, with no particular hint of interest in his voice.

Considering the gentle way he would tend to an old grandmother with a slight cold, this was indeed odd.

“Yes. The body parts I requested—are they ready yet?”

“I am making the modifications as we speak. I do have a lot on my plate at the moment.”

“Oh, have you been putting the demands of others over my own?”

“A physician does not discuss the needs of one patient with another.”

“Then please excuse the question,” he answered humbly. “Would you mind if I observed the great Demon Physician at work?”

“I am assembling your body. Do as you wish.”

“Then if you don’t mind.”

A loud clunk echoed from the doorway. The floor was finished with stone. Princess had torched the previous laboratory and so Mephisto was given a new one. The chemicals and compounds and equipment were new too, though the Demon Physician’s interests were sufficiently engaged either way.

The scraping, clunking sound came nearer, that of metal scraping against stone. Even when it came to a halt on his right, Mephisto didn’t divert his attention from the workbench.

“Well, well,” Kikiou said in admiring tones.

The Demon Physician and the scene around him made for a perfect fit. His attention was focused on human limbs, the same as those that writhed in Kikiou’s warehouse. An arm split open from the wrist to the shoulder revealing its innards, and a leg similarly exposed.

It wasn’t human flesh. There wasn’t any blood. Instead of muscle, a milky-white clay-like material. Instead of blood, a similarly white liquid spotted the tabletop in drips and drops.

“So you’re manipulating the clay at the molecular level, eh? It seems the wisdom that comes with age does not count for much when technological skill is involved.”

“I suppose I should take that as a compliment.”

“Though making it into a human-identical component is not that difficult.”

Mephisto absentmindedly ran his fingers across one of the transparent tendons. A shiver ran down the arm. It seemed as much a self-conscious reaction to the doctor in white as a natural response from the nervous system.

“But is that acceptable to a Hsia Dynasty scholar and alchemist? Can a man accustomed to testing the boundaries of science settle for the same standard as before?”

“What are you suggesting?”

“I will seek the patient’s input. Do you wish something more than two arms and two legs? Something more than the status quo?” Mephisto addressed the question to Kikiou.

Kikiou was dressed in a long robe. “More than this status quo?” he asked. “Show me.”

The long robe fell to the floor. Kikiou stood there wrapped in silver light. Excepting his head, the rest of him looked like a suit of medieval European armor. Though every body part was a faithful reproduction of the real thing, the screws and crude mechanical construction had a slapped-together feel.

At the same time, the same steel joints and hinges moved with a smooth precision that clearly exceeded that of industrial robots in the outside world. And considering the crude state of brain-computer interfaces at the present time, the mechanical human with the white beard was the very embodiment of science.

“I have tested and retested the proposition—whether or not a body made without steel can possess the strength and durability of steel. Princess is immortal, but alas, I am not. I have concocted ways of preserving the brain against the ravages of age. But not the body. If only I could be happy with this steel—but it is too heavy. My movements are restricted even walking around. Are you proposing a solution to the issues I have laid out?”

“I am.”

“Oh! And when?”

“Before dawn—by the reckoning of the outside world.”

Kikiou was struck dumb with surprise. The eastern skies would begin to brighten in less than eight hours. The hands and feet were not attached, and the tools and the know-how to use them all resided with Kikiou. Mephisto was a man who could create something out of nothing—even create more than something out of nothing. That’s why he was called the Demon Physician.

“I suppose I should expect as much from Doctor Mephisto,” said Kikiou, meaning no less.

“You wish to kill Setsura Aki, Kikiou?” Mephisto abruptly asked.

Kikiou didn’t answer. He seemed perplexed. A natural reaction, perhaps, knowing what he knew about the relationship between this doctor and Setsura.

This great Hsia warlock and scholar did not imagine that he and Mephisto were of one mind on the matter. Though he’d lived for four thousand years, there were mysterious aspects of this striking doctor even his eyes had not witnessed before.

Mephisto turned himself into a vampire in order to sate his lust for knowledge. During their first meeting, Kikiou had urged him to partake of an elixir that provided a peek at that world visible only to creatures of the night. All had gone remarkably as planned. He’d read Mephisto’s every move. But since turning into a vampire, Mephisto had become a cipher.

According to Princess, Ryuuki had bitten Mephisto. And Ryuuki’s sire was Princess. Humans became subject to the sire who’d sucked their blood. As powerful a vampire as Princess should be able to control Mephisto directly, without going through Ryuuki.

She showed no signs of doing so. Not that she did not desire to. Something about this doctor seemed to block her ability to control him without her being aware of it.

Even if it did not reach that far, at least when he was standing next to her, the strength of her vampiric influence should be felt. Without a word being spoken, he should yield to her as a child to a parent.

This doctor, though, evinced not the slightest inclination. That he possessed an uncompromising will was undeniable, though the way it expressed itself so invisibly was downright uncanny. This nonchalant deflection of Princess’s power—as if to cancel it out entirely—could be found nowhere else in the world.

Mephisto had devised the means of becoming a vampire if only in order to grasp that knowledge that would allow him to understand what even he and Princess could not—this was the thought that constrained Kikiou’s answer.

The room fell into silence, a silence that seemed to go on forever. At length Kikiou said, “That man is an evil and destructive star that threatens Princess and thwarts my aspirations. That star must be extinguished, no matter what.”

“In that case, then let it be so. I look forward to seeing you destroy Setsura Aki. I swear upon the name of Doctor Mephisto that I will infuse these limbs with the power to do so.”

Mephisto smiled. The sound of steel rang out, Kikiou stumbling backward at the sight of that smile. The old man’s face was like that of an Old Testament prophet genuflecting before the face of God.

“I am indeed grateful to the Demon Physician,” he said. “The body of your making combined with my brain will make for an unbeatable combination. Setsura Aki will surely die. The very personification of Demon City itself will surely never taste defeat.”

For a long time, in the flickering shadows cast by the waxy candlelight, the Demon Physician and the steel warlock stood face to face, the death mask of that lovely young man rising up in each of their mind’s eyes.

“Good grief, General Ryuuki. You sure raked me over the coals.”

Setsura got up from the grass. Yakou had fallen at his feet. He’d taken the pill that contained Mephisto’s drug. Setsura collapsed first because, as he observed, Ryuuki’s demon qi dammed up in his guts was giving him painful fits.

He knew he was pretty well screwed as soon as Yakou’s attack came, and keeled right over.

“Turncoat,” he said, giving Yakou a kick in the side. “For the Elder’s grandson, you sure are a disgrace.” He folded his arms across his chest and pondered with a rather bored insouciance what to do with him. “I need Mephisto to get you back to normal. But you know him. If you’re not a patient in his hospital, he just can’t treat anybody in a straightforward manner. A couple of aspirin and good night’s sleep won’t do it either. Or—just cure you this way—”

With a perfectly placid expression on his face, he wound the devil wire from his right hand around Yakou’s neck. Did he really intend to wring the neck of his one-time ally?

“Peekaboo.” Setsura flung out a strand of devil wire toward the stand of trees behind him.

“Trying to trick me?” The dazzling Demon Princess stepped from behind the shadow of a big cedar. She held onto the other end of the devil wire—that could cut through any object.

“Didn’t fall for the feint, eh?” he said. He had only made a show of garroting Yakou, while waiting for a clear shot at Princess, sneaking up behind him. “What do you want?” he asked blandly. “You still need to repent of your sins, restore Takako-san, and part with your head, if you don’t mind.”

“I’m sorry, but I can’t do that,” Princess said, raising her hand to her mouth and smiling. A carefree smile. Setsura’s conduct was so beyond the realm of common sense that it left her momentarily speechless. But only for a moment.

She stared back at him, her eyes overflowing with fierce loathing and murderous rage. Hard to imagine this was the same woman who, in response to Mephisto’s question, had said she loved Setsura.

“You get hit by Ryuuki’s demon qi and still mouth off like that. But not for long, even if you want to. All that will issue forth from your lungs are your curses and pleas. Come.”

“Where?”

“My bedroom.”

“I’m not into loose women.”

“So you don’t care what happens to Takako?”

Setsura didn’t have an answer to that.

“Spend the rest of eternity dreaming bloody dreams in my bedroom, if you so please. But I can still hear her crying out for salvation, Help me, Setsura-sama, she says.”

“Coward,” Setsura fumed with the quiet fury of a dormant volcano.

Princess smiled. “I am forcing no one. You will follow me of your own free will. That is what your pride cannot abide, whether or not Takako is my hostage. However, this is not a one-time offer. It will not end after ten more times or a hundred. Until I am satisfied, you will follow me. Now come.”

Setsura said as the pure white dress whirled around, “What do we do with pretty boy here?” He pointed at Yakou on the ground.

“Loser,” Princess sneered at her most faithful follower.

“I wouldn’t disagree,” agreed Setsura. Die now, and he was on a highway to hell.

“Leave him there. Punishment for disobeying me and picking a fight with you. But what happened to him?”

“A dose of Mephisto’s medicine.”

“Like a stopped clock, that doctor ends up doing the right thing now and then. Then let him clean up after himself.”

“True, too.”

He trailed after Princess as she headed to the manor house, leaving Yakou alone on his bed of grass. The sunlight beat down unmercifully, tormenting the silent body with its burning heat.